Auctions, particularly online auctions, have developed recently and are widespread and increasingly popular (e.g., over the Internet). These auctions typically include at a minimum a seller, or sellers, offering up for sale at the auction one, or more, goods and services. The auction is conducted, over sought, and/or managed by an auctioneer wherein the auction, if successful, includes at least one bidder who ultimately ends up the buyer of the offered-for-sale goods and/or services. Post-auction activities typically may include the exchange of money (in the successful bid amount) for the shipment of the purchased goods and/or services.
Online auctions have drawbacks that are similar to traditional in-person auctions. Amongst them may include “winner's curse” which essentially states that the winner at the auction (i.e., winning bidder) often overbids (i.e., pays a higher price than the rational value of the item). Also, there is the occurrence where the winning bidder has placed a winning bid for a good that is below, or far below, the fair market price, or rational value, for the particular good. Indeed, under the “classical” auctioning method, this is often the ultimate goal of the bidders. That is auction participants often do not necessarily wish to purchase desired goods and services, but are ultimately just looking for a “great deal.” Various theories abound as to what aspects may attribute to this. In fact, online auctions have attributes which may exacerbate these shortcomings as compared to in-person auctions. Due to the relative technical ease of, for example, searching online auctions, bidding quickly at online auctions, and bidding immediately prior to the close of the online auctions, there are a host of bidders that search, bid, and obtain goods for an irrationally low bid price. This often occurs when there is a single bidder at the auction. For example, due to a lack of bidding activity from any other bidders, the bidder may get lucky and purchase a good for $1 at the auction (when the rational value of the good may, in fact, be $100). Applying a participant-centric paradigm to an online auction reveals that all bidders (assuming rational behavior) want to obtain the offered item at the lowest possible bid. Contrastingly, the seller typically wants to sell the item at the highest possible bid. The auctioneer wants to sell the item as quickly as possible and at as high a possible bid; and, continue selling more items at the instant auction and at future auctions. Overlaid on this dynamic is the tension between what an “equilibrium”, “fair”, “true”, and/or “rational” price for a good or service is and an “irrational” or “undervalued” price for the same good or service. Due to these inherently conflicting positions and viewpoints from the various participants (i.e., bidder, seller, buyer, auctioneer), current auction scenarios (e.g., online and/or in-person auctions) invariably result in one, or more, participants being unsatisfied.
In view of the foregoing, a need exists to overcome one or more of the deficiencies in the related art.